Northwest NEWS

December 16,
2002

Opinion

Letters to the Editor

State
has little regard for area youth
The state of Washington wants to put a halfway house for violent sexual
predators near Carnation and in doing so will risk the safety of hundreds
of kids. Within a short distance of the proposed facility there is an elementary
school, a middle school, a Girl Scout camp, a Catholic Youth camp, and a
Christian Youth camp. The Girl Scout camp and the Catholic Youth camp would
be dangerously close to this facility. Kids at these camps sleep outdoors
in tents and open-air shelters and would be easy prey for these predators.
Carnation is a small town and most of the kids walk to school. This puts
even more kids at risk of being abducted and raped. Our town has only a
small part-time police department that would be ill equipped to deal with
this risk. The state is showing a total lack of regard for the safety of
our local kids and the kids from the greater Puget Sound area who attend
these camps. Maybe we need an initiative to bring some sense to DSHS and
stop them from destroying the safety of our kids and communities.
Gerod Wattier, Carnation

Residents know what is
best for community
Your recent article “Carnation on shortlist for sex offender facility,”
Vol. 16 No. 49, Dec. 9, 2002, made it seem like this problem only affects
Carnation residents and residents just outside the Carnation city limits.
What it failed to illustrate is that this facility could undermine communities
as far as Fall City, Duvall, Bellevue, Redmond, Woodinville, and maybe
even Seattle.
Because the City of Carnation does not have the infrastructure to support
such a facility, the DHSH plans to bus the offenders (at an additional
expense to the taxpayers) to neighboring communities for vocational training,
medical care, mental health care, job placement, etc. These predators
may be working as janitors in your businesses. They will be taking classes
in the same schools where you take your night classes. They will be going
to the same doctors and dentists that you take your children to for their
health care. Evidently, the DSHS feels it is much cheaper to chauffeur
the predators to wherever they need to go, rather than locating the facility
in an area where those services are close by.
As I see it, this facility brings nothing positive to the community and
will only suck everything good out of it. Our tax dollars are going to
pay for a facility that will only endanger our families, decrease our
property values and destroy our quality of living and sense of security
- a triple whammy. And it does not stop there. People will stop bringing
their children to area camps and avoid the public hiking and riding trails.
Corporations and families will cease to take their children to Remlinger
Farms and families will eventually move to safer neighborhoods. Growth
will cease.
After all, who wants to move to or invest in an area where nobody wants
to live? The community as we know it will die. How many lives must these
predators destroy? Why must we, as law-abiding citizens, continue to pay
for their mistakes?
It seems to me that the federal judge feels that the rights of law-abiding
citizens are not as important as the rights of sex offenders. To me, that
is “unconstitutional.” If the federal judge feels so strongly
that locking these individuals up for the rest of their lives is unconstitutional,
why doesn’t the DSHS locate the facility in his community, next
to his home.
The article also failed to report on the fact that King County is exempt
from many of the laws and regulations that would preclude a private builder
from constructing a facility of that size and magnitude on a site that
contains seasonal streams, wetlands and landfill ... a site prone to seasonal
flooding. Yes, when it comes to King County protecting its citizens, wildlife
used to come first, but now it seems that sex predators have priority.
That fact that the land is zoned “RA” does not matter because
King County is exempt from any zoning laws. The fact that the land is
mostly wetland (one of the main reasons that the land was on the market
for two years and did not sell) does not matter because King County is
exempt from any DDES regulations. And the fact that the land contains
fill, making it difficult to locate a septic system (to support up to
12 people) and well water based on current setback rules does not matter
because King County is exempt from these regulations. The list goes on
and on. Constitutionality? Where is the constitutionality in all of that?
When did we let all this happen? When did we allow a government agency
to have so much control and power? And why should we allow an organization
that does not even play by the very rules that it is supposed to enforce
make a decision on what is best for our community?
Why should we allow an organization that hires individuals like the woman
convicted of stealing from the state and subsequently hired to work for
the Department of Social and Health Services? Should we trust the judgement
of an organization that chooses to employ and then protect a known felon,
rather than protecting the community that they are hired to serve? Should
we be at all surprised that their decisions seem to favor the guilty,
rather than the innocent?
And finally, let us not forget that King County currently does not have
such a facility as the one proposed, never constructed such a facility,
and has no track record for comparison of what works or does not work.
Yet this new facility will house the 3 percent worst sex offenders in
the state - using our community citizens as the guinea pigs. I am hoping
(pleading) that our neighboring communities will join us in the fight
to keep this facility out of our areas. After all, we live here so we
should know what is best for our community.
Keith S. Drechsel, Carnation

New technology needed
I believe that the county needs to redesign the proposed Brightwater plant
to utilize the latest waste treatment technology. Using reverse osmosis
membrane equipment, the entire waste water plant could be put into underground
vaults. The only above-ground portions of the plant would be an access
door and a small vent a few feet in diameter. This technology has been
demonstrated in Duvall and Monroe and is currently being installed at
the Tulalip reservation north of Marysville.
By placing the facility underground, the neighbors would get a new park
and the community might get some badly needed ball fields. Property values
would increase and everyone would be happy. The more modern technology
is more expensive to install than an above-ground plant but it’s
operating costs are significantly lower. By spending more money up front,
the county could be seen as a positive force for progress rather
than an ugly intruder.
Peter Michel, Woodinville

Aquifer danger will not stop
Brightwater
I have been reading with great interest the letters from concerned Woodinville
residents who wish to stop the construction of a sewage treatment plant
in their neighborhood. However I should like to offer my neighbors
a piece of advice: Place not thy faith in the presence of a sensitive
water resource, like an aquifer, to deter Mr. Sims and his Council from
the execution of their designs. You may recall that Mr. Sims and his Council
were quite happy to permit the construction of a 15,000 unit mini city,
and a service station with its fuel storage tanks, over the Redmond Watershed
atop Novelty Hill. This despite the strong opposition of local residents
not to mention the City of Redmond. Mr. Sims and his Council have
proven themselves remarkably insensitive to such mundane considerations
such as quality of life and the environment when presented with the opportunity
of approving large budget construction projects.
So, my Woodinville neighbors, if you really want to stop Brightwater,
I’m afraid you’ll need to find a more potent consideration
that will persuade him to abandon his course of action.
William G. terKuile, via e-mail

More money is not the remedy
The Guest Editorial in your Dec. 2, 2002, issue titled “Legislature
must keep commitment to public schools” is a very well written political
advocacy statement setting forth rhetoric similar to that used in the
successful campaign for the misguided Initiatives 728 and 732, both of
which should have remained in the collective bargaining process. The conclusions
and attitudes the author attributes to the “public” and “voters”
certainly do not reflect the responses within my circle of acquaintances.
I’m of an older generation that experienced the initiation of collective
bargaining to the education profession. As an elected school board member
in those years, I associated with many fine and dedicated educators. As
beginners in the negotiation process, we however made many positive accomplishments
on behalf of students.
As the years passed, negotiations have taken on a serious adversarial
relationship with the goals and tactics of the teachers’ union being
orchestrated by non-district interests. The use of district-wide strikes
has become commonplace in recent years, eventhough they are illegal. The
absence of any significant consequences in strikes, financial and otherwise,
makes striking by teachers an easy, inexpensive but very divisive tactic,
and for what? Not better education as is their plea, just better salaries
and/or working conditions.
In the early 1980s the President’s Commission on Secondary Education
prepared a report, “A Nation At Risk,” wherein one of the
conclusions I recall was that the decline in student achievement, the
motivation for the report, corresponded with the increase in teacher union
activity. Where are we today? A highly organized, wealthy, articulate
and persuasive teachers’ union orchestrates public education in
this state.
Another of the President’s Commission finding 20 years ago was that
there were too many incompetent teachers in the nation’s secondary
schools. In 1981 our local papers reported the results of a state of Washington
study in which approximately one-third of the state’s high school
teachers had inadequate training to teach their assigned subject. And
now, 20 years later, it was reported recently in our papers that approximately
the same percentage, one-third of the certified staff tested, did not
pass this state’s competency test, a result that has been repeated
in numerous other states in this nation.
So what has been achieved in the last 20 years of increased funding for
education including significant salary increases utilizing an archaic
salary schedule? Apparently no increase in teacher competency, student
achievement has not significantly improved, in fact in some subjects it
has declined and nationally we rank far down the list world wide. But
we do have an abundance of computers, some architecturally unique school
facilities, small class sizes in some locations and a more greedy, self-serving
labor union. Are we getting our money’s worth? I urge everyone to
become familiar with their district’s contract between the certified
staff and you, the tax payer.
In the rest of the real world, productivity is frequently a stimulus for
improved working conditions including salaries. In the education business,
student achievement should serve that same role. If the only thing that
the teachers’ union president can suggest to better prepare students
for today’s competitive workplace is increased funding, then I suggest
that the history of this business as well as the plethora of parameters
measuring the achievement should clearly cry out the conclusion to the
informed public that the public education monopoly is broken and more
money is not the remedy. Try competition. It works in other businesses.
Joe E. Monahan

Is a gas station worth the
risk?
Are the risks associated with underground gas tanks acceptable if it puts
an aquifer and the groundwater supplying thousands of homes at risk? King
County thinks so. The Department of Ecology thinks otherwise. Those of
us on wells should all be outraged!
King County has approved a gas station for Redmond Ridge that will be
built directly above the recharge area for the aquifer supplying water
to thousands of homes, including customers of the Union Hill Water Association.
Not surprisingly, this gas station was not shown in the plat approved
for Redmond Ridge, but was approved by King County’s DDES as a modification
well after the preliminary plat was approved - too late for public involvement
or opposition to it. Does this smell like an intentional “bait and
switch” to you?
Washington State Department of Ecology experts have put the risk of failure
of such gas station storage systems as high as 10 percent, even with the
greater regulation required. This is not a “minimal risk”
as recently suggested to me by Hearing Examiner Stafford Smith. But King
County has never publicly addressed this risk and is unwilling to do a
Supplemental EIS to review it today. Quadrant wants a gas station and
King County is going to give it to them. If it destroys the aquifer and
results in thousands of homes without water. Oh well.
Is one more gas station worth the risk it brings to such a valuable resource
as an aquifer?
Michael Costello, Redmond

Still no economical alternative
to outdoor burning
(Copy of a letter sent to members of King County Council)
It was disturbing to see in Puget Sound Clean air Agency (PSCAA) Director
McLerran’s power-point presentation that the PSCAA intends to effectively
exceed federal standards to “protect public health” by “further
reducing outdoor burning” and by “replacing wood stoves and
fireplaces with certified devices and cleaner fuels (that include) natural
gas, propane, and sawdust logs.” (There are lawyers who specialize
in natural gas/propane explosion lawsuits.)
The current Hollywood Hill rural-area burn ban does not comply with state
law RCW 70.94.743 through .765. Mr. McLerran has previously stated his
intention to outlaw outdoor burning in all rural areas of his 4-county
jurisdiction as soon as those areas have available the alternative, reasonably
economical disposal methods called for by state law for areas where rural
outdoor burning is disallowed.
The last waste disposal notice sent me, for a “Woodinville and King
County Special Collection Event” in September specifically prohibited
bringing to the Woodinville collection point any tree branches less than
six inches in diameter, and “no leaves, grass, small branches, sod,
or brush” was allowed. (And of course you must have a truck to deliver
what’s deliverable.)
Since former Council Member Louise Miller said that you can’t hire
a chipper for under $200-$300, we in the current burn-ban rural area still
don’t have an “economical alternative” to the outdoor
burning that state laws allow us a couple of times a year in the spring
and fall; and we must somehow haul our own acreage debris to the landfills
- or leave them as fire hazards.
King County should add to its 2003 state-lobbying agenda a strong request
to see that Ecology and PSCAA adhere to the legislatively-adopted state
laws that do allow rural outdoor burning under strictly-controlled circumstances.
Otherwise regional solid waste disposal costs will go up as rural acreage
waste overflows the waste handling facilities.
Maxine Keesling, Woodinville

Letters to the editor are welcome and encouraged. Send them to P.
O. Box 587 or 13342 NE 175th, Woodinville, WA. 98072; FAX them to (425)486-7593;
or e-mail them to kdiefendorf@woodinville.com. They must be signed and
include a daytime telephone number for verification.
They may be edited.